To
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Subject: Equip and Empower India to Fight Covid-19
Mr. Prime Minister,
AS we approach the scheduled end of the lockdown announced by you on 24 March, we are already hearing about extension of the lockdown period in some states and sealing of entire areas identified as Covid-19 hotspots. The experience of the last three weeks has made it very clear that the combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown has resulted in a much bigger crisis and we need to acknowledge and tackle it in its entirety.
The following are just five key flash points of this massive and unprecedented crisis: (i) a colossal public health emergency, compounded by an abysmally under-equipped and under-funded health care system and living and working conditions of vast sections of our population that are incompatible with the necessary hygienic precautions, (ii) a sudden loss of livelihood for millions of workers, many of whom are stuck away from home without work and income, and many of whom are desperate to get back home, (iii) rapid spread of hunger and massive crisis of daily essentials, (iv) ominous spread of hate, stigma and rumours, along with superstitions and fake cures, at a time when we need to face the crisis with unity, harmony, rationality, awareness and correct information, and (v) increasing centralisation of power, arbitrariness in decision making and implementation, and coercive policing and repressive governance when we need more transparency, accountability, and enlisting of popular support, in short greater popular participation and democracy at the grassroots to face the challenge.
Against this backdrop, we want to draw the urgent attention of the Central and state governments and all concerned sections of people, to the following charter, for urgent collective intervention and determined action.
Equip and Empower India to Fight Covid-19
Consultation and Cooperation Not Coercion
1. Consultation and confidence building and transparency involving all stake holders, including trade unions and representatives of all oppressed sections of society.
2. No police and administrative repression in the name of lockdown: physical distancing must be achieved through patient explanation and sympathetic help, not coercion.
3. Empty the detention centres, stop overcrowding in jails by releasing all undertrials, release vulnerable, disabled and elderly prisoners on parole, release all political prisoners including those arrested in Kashmir, and stop fresh arrests of dissenting voices and activists involved in anti-CAA protest movement and other public causes.
Migrant Workers and Other Vulnerable Sections
4. A Migrant Workers Action Plan, addressing the urgent and unresolved issues of survival and health of migrant workers (i) drawing up lists of migrant workers and their families in coordination with village panchayats and ensuring direct cash transfer to all, (ii) giving them all support and protection in their current locations, especially ensuring food supply in sealed areas, (iii) ensuring uninterrupted payment of wages and subsistence allowance to all workers including self-employed migrant workers, (iv) fixing the accountability of local administration and employers to ensure strict implementation of the Action Plan.
5. Action Plan for informal sector workers, sex workers, transgender persons, disabled persons, elderly persons and all other sections of people rendered precarious by the lockdown.
Hunger, Housing, and Livelihood
6. Assured Doorstep Delivery of cooked food, rations, fuel, and other essential goods and services, irrespective of ration card, registration in welfare boards, Aadhaar card or any other requirements. Community kitchens in every locality. The government must welcome and back the efforts of workers and farmers groups, youth organisations and various community/social organisations to build a trained and equipped volunteer force to ensure relief and delivery on war-footing.
7. Commission all unused houses, hotels, marriage halls etc to house the homeless.
8. Waivers of rent and debt, deferment of EMI payments, and payment of pandemic subsistence allowance to all affected families, regardless of presence of documents.
9. Transform MNREGA towards essential services during the pandemic, including delivery of ration and food,with due increase in Risk/Pandemic Pay.
10. Protection against wage cuts, retrenchments, job loss and security of shelter and uninterrupted supply of electricity, water, Internet etc. for the poor. Embargo on termination of employees in IT, ITES, FINTECH, service sector, tourism and MSME industries.
Agrarian Crisis
11. Urgent measures to harvest standing crops and government procurement of all crops at a fair price from farmers, to prevent the brewing agrarian crisis from escalating.
Health Care and Medical Infrastructure
12. Urgently strengthen the public health system by taking over and bringing all private hospitals, diagnostic labs and other medical facilities and pharmaceutical firms under strict government regulation to provide free and easily available Covid-19 testing and treatment, ensure a sufficient supply of ventilators, PPE kits, and masks.
13. Increase Covid-19 testing widely test, trace, treat. Ensure free emergency mental health response systems for all.
14. Ensure that regular health services remain available and active during the pandemic.
15. Allocate and invest sufficient funds for urgent creation of medical and quarantine infrastructure in every state. The emphasis must be on care and education, not coercion and criminalisation when it comes to Covid-19.
16. Immediate full restoration of internet services in Kashmir, where lack of adequate connectivity is seriously hampering access to vital information and communications during the pandemic.
Essential Service Workers
17. Ensure that all essential workers and frontline fighters (health, sanitation, delivery workers, ambulance drivers, care workers, (especially for the disabled and elderly), police personnel, workers in Steel Plants, agricultural and other essential sectors), get special Pandemic Pay (amounting to minimum 3 months’ salary) as well as regularisation of jobs, PPE and every manner of protection and respect.
Women
18. Create a 24/7 domestic violence and child abuse hotline in every district in the country, with special teams to respond to distress calls from survivors; include sanitary pads in kits of essential items to be delivered to every home; immediately withdraw the order lifting the ban on sex determination during the lockdown.
Curb Communalisation and Stigmatisation
19. Take prompt action, and also widely create awareness, against communal targeting of minorities and stigmatisation of Covid-19 cases and caregivers. There are disturbing reports of Muslims facing social boycott, exclusion and violent attacks, racist targeting of people from the North-East, and eviction and harassment of suspected Covid-19 sufferers. Prompt and exemplary action must be taken to stop these crimes and ensure full compliance with WHO directives and the belatedly issued government advisory in this regard.
Accountable and Transparent Funding for Health, Pandemic and Lockdown Relief
20. Instead of suspending funds for Local Area Development and state shares in welfare schemes, immediately stop all plans for Bullet Train, Central Vista, military procurements, government advertising, and foreign travel of the PM and members of Government; recover loans and taxes from super-rich, divert all this towards Covid-19 and lockdown relief.
21. Ensure speedy disbursal and proper utilisation of relief funds ensuring full transparency and accountability about the deposit of donations and utilisation of funds, especially the newly launched PM-CARES fund which has being declated as a dedicated fund to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hoping for a positive response to strengthening our collective fight against Covid-19,
Sincerely yours,
Dipankar Bhattacharya,
General Secretary,
CPI(ML) Liberation
Copy to: All CMs
